Premier(e): Dragonfly Collector: “Dragonfly Collector”

For about a decade and a half now, musician/songwriter Clem Castro has taken on different roles and guises, first as one of the frontmen of much-loved New Wave outfit Orange and Lemons, and then as the leader of indie-pop trio The Camerawalls. Nowadays, he goes by the name Dragonfly Collector, originally the title of his personal blog, and currently his more folk-ish side project/alter-ego. After a relatively lengthy absence from the airwaves (the last Camerawalls release, the Bread and Circuses EP, came out in 2010), Castro is set to unveil the first Dragonfly Collector full-length, The World is Your Oyster, before the year ends. His eponymously-titled debut single (Big Country, anyone?) contains pretty much every sonic quality one would come to expect from Castro, from his Lennon-esque intoning to his jangly acoustic guitars. It sounds familiar enough for longtime fans to get reacquainted with Castro’s new incarnation, but it exhibits a bit of an evolution as well, sounding much more like The Decemberists and Belle & Sebastian than The Smiths or even The Beatles. You’ll have to listen much closer to catch any hint of a British accent, which I never really had any problem with from the start, but listeners of a more nationalistic vein might find this track more appealing than his previous bands’ Anglo-centric sound.

Official photos by Paolo Legaspi, with styling by Jane Cometa. Pre-order Dragonfly Collector’s The World is Your Oyster via iTunes or his own online shop. Stream “Dragonfly Collector” below.